PLYMOUTH – The rain fell heavily, then lightly, then heavily again Tuesday morning as thousands of police officers and state troopers from across the state gathered on Court Street outside St. Peter’s Catholic Church to pay their final respects to Gregory Maloney.

Then the rain stopped long enough for them to give a silent salute to the Plymouth motorcycle officer, who his patrol buddy, officer Jason Higgins, called “the guy you wanted with you on a dangerous call.”

“Even the bad guys liked him,” Higgins said in his eulogy during the funeral Mass that followed the salute to Maloney’s funeral procession.

Maloney died April 1 from injuries he suffered in a crash while on patrol on Samoset Street. He was 44, a 17-year veteran of the Plymouth force, and the lead member of the department’s motorcycle unit.

Mourners inside the packed church included Gov. Deval Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley, U.S. Rep. William Keating and state Senate President Therese Murray of Plymouth.

As an estimated 2,000 police officers and troopers listened to the funeral from sidewalk speakers, Higgins and Police Chief Michael Botieri struggled at times during their eulogies – a mark of the shock they said the department is still feeling.

“Many have said, ‘It feels like a dream,’” Higgins said of Maloney’s sudden death.

“To others on the motorcycle unit, he was the most skilled operator on the team,” Botieri said. “And there’s no way to know the number of lives he touched every time he went to work.”

Higgins said Maloney had that effect on his fellow officers, too.

“If you had a bad day, he would be the first one to look you in the eye and make sure you were OK,” Higgins said.

Higgins then gave mourners a lighter moment, praising Maloney’s well-known passion for cars and motorcycles.

“He would take apart an engine and put it back together, and then from the back seat he’d tell you how to drive it,” Higgins said.

Hours before the service, even before columns of police, troopers and honor guards formed along the street, Maloney’s fellow officers were already silently saluting his love of motorcycles.

A Plymouth police motorcycle stood parked on the grass outside Memorial Hall, across from St. Peter’s. Just up Court Street, dozens of police motorcycles from other towns lined the curb.

When the funeral procession slowly made its way up the street shortly before 11, a Plymouth police officer walked in front of the hearse, bearing Maloney’s blue motorcycle helmet in his gloved hands. The low growl of the motorcycle escort engines was the only sound then, and the only sound two hours later, as the procession started on its way to Vine Hills Cemetery.

Page 2 of 2 - Lane Lambert may be reached at llambert@ledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @LLambert_Ledger.